For decorative lighting often a high number of light sources such as luminaries have to be installed and the control systems for these light sources have to be configured correctly in order to reproduce the proper light effects in a location. Typical lamps for such application are often controlled via a certain control bus. Several lamps are connected to the same physical or logical bus. In order to control the lamps individually, the information on the control bus is arranged in a way that a lamp can determine which part of the total information on the bus is relevant for it. Each lamp has an address; based on this address, the lamps extract the relevant data. Many installed light sources in a number of locations, mean a tedious process of determining the addresses of the different light sources and program these into the light system controller. This is required in order to guarantee an individual addressability of all the light sources for controlling the light sources with the light system controller such as changing the illumination in certain areas or of certain objects. The process of making the addresses of the different light sources known to the lighting system or the light system controller is called commissioning and is also important for support personnel, since during editing or changing of lighting scenes, it would be a very hard task for the personnel to know the addresses of light sources and to assign the desired light effects to these addresses.
WO2006/111930A1 discloses a lighting system, which comprises a controller, lighting units, and a sensing device. Each lighting unit comprises a lighting source and a modulated light source. A single light source may be used to function as both the lighting source and the modulated light source. Each modulated light source emits uniquely modulated light. A radiation pattern of each modulated light source coincides substantially with a radiation pattern of a lighting source of the same lighting unit. The sensing device is suitable to sense modulated light in a viewing area. Lighting units from which the sensing device senses modulated light are identified from the modulation of that modulated light. The sensing device measures the intensity of the modulated light from the identified lighting unit. The lighting sources are controlled dependent on control data which comprises measuring values of measured light intensities. Thus, illumination of a specific area or object can be changed without requiring from a user to know which lighting sources are responsible for a present lighting of the area or object and which lighting sources need to be controlled and to what extend for obtaining a wanted lighting for the area or object.